Primitivus is not easy to use at the beginning. It should display some help

reporter

jnanar

created

29/07/2016, 16:37

updated

29/07/2016, 16:41

labels

Primitivus

type

bug

status

queued

priority

normal

milestone

0.7

severity

normal

body

The first time we launch Primitivus, it is difficult to know how to use it. There are a lot of useful shortcuts but I had to read the code to discover them.
As the first window (profile selector) does not use a large area of the screen, it could be useful to display a list of shortcuts or a small help message, or a text that say that we can have information when typing an easy to remember shortcut (C-c ?).
In my opinion, the easiest (and sufficient) improvement would be a list of the more useful shortcuts on the profile first screen:
C-x quit
M-m display/hide the menu
C-n show the next notification
C-s hide/redisplay a pop-up window temporarily
F2 hide/display the roster
Chat rooms
M-p hide/display the list of participants
M-t hide/display timestamps
M-n use/don't use short nicks
M-l hide/display window decorations
It would help people to understand the program and they would not panic if they used a shortcut by mistake.
Moreover, an "about" menu entry could display the same information in order to access it without have to logout and login again.
Thanks.

In addition, it is mandatory to press "shift" in order to select and/or past text in the window. It is not instinctive but this is how urwid works (see https://github.com/mitmproxy/mitmproxy/issues/597).
The previously mentioned help text should mention that too.